Business Discussion

Learning Goal: I’m working on a business discussion question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

PART A – PLEASE RESPOND TO CLASSMATE DISCUSSION WHETHER YOU AGREE OR NOT AND A DETAILED WHY/SUGGESTIONS: I will be using the organization Crane and focusing on the Crane Merchandising System Segment.

What are the most critical elements of your data story that need to be communicated? – The most critical elements of my data story that need to be communicated is the opportunity at hand, which is to increase the revenue for the Crane Merchandising System Segment. I also need to include visuals of the data that supports my hypothesis, and how I plan on using the data to find a positive solution.

How will you organize and share your data so that it tells a clear and compelling story? – I plan on organizing my data by using the “Three Acts”. This will ensure that I tell a clear and compelling story. The Three Acts helps to create an outline that includes a beginning, middle, and end.

Act 1: Identifying the opportunity – increasing revenue

Act 2: Provide data with visuals to help support my hypothesis

Act 3: Explain how I plan on using the data to find a positive solution.

Select two data display techniques discussed by Duarte in Chapter 6 and/or Chapter 7 and use them to present two important data sets from your analysis. – I plan on using the charts that I provided last week for the visualizations. However, I plan on highlighting the pertinent data by making it stand out. I also plan on adding delineate data to show a visual of our goals and how far away we are from it.

PART B – PLEASE RESPOND TO CLASSMATE DISCUSSION WHETHER YOU AGREE OR NOT AND A DETAILED WHY/SUGGESTIONS: As a reminder my opportunity that I am looking to solve is that the Blizzard Entertainment arm of Activision Blizzard has had incredible highs over the years, but lately has suffered from setbacks that have crippled a once great video game developer. My solution is a re-branding strategy coupled with a change in development that will allow World of Warcraft to draw old players back into the game and keep them engaged for longer. If done correctly, we will reduce or eliminate our weaknesses as well as become a major competitor within the marketspace again. Furthermore, this could be a springboard for other franchises we wish to revive or revitalize in the future.

The most critical element of my data that needs to be communicated is the decline of popularity. I have estimated subscribers of World of Warcraft from 2015 to 2030 (predicting based off past data), this is the most critical because I can use the data points from the past to align with major developments. This could be tying things to unpopular decisions made by Game Directors that led to a downturn, or fierce competition that drew players away from the game. Understanding these correlations and communicating them can drive home the urgency that I feel to my stakeholders.

I will organize and share my data through visual mediums. I will highlight our products with visual key art to better draw a person’s attention to the time periods I will be talking about. Additionally, while the data and numbers are important, the most important concept is the idea of what I am trying to tell them. Ensuring I am too the point and not too flashy will go a long way of selling my idea.

The two data display techniques using line graphs to show the rise and fall of multiple variables in relation to each other. I will also use bar graphs to compare values and variables to better draw correlations between the data sets that I have.